Green Party officials have set aside a safe room for Jewish members at the party’s conference in Brighton, amid heightened tensions over a vote on whether Zionism should be defined as racism in official policy.
A Jewish member said the room could be used by members who felt threatened during the three-day gathering. It was used on the opening day for a meeting between a rabbi and Jewish members.
“We have been given a ‘safe room’ for Jewish members to use in an emergency,” the member said. “It was used on the first day of the conference to host a meeting between a rabbi and some Jewish members. It’s a deeply upsetting situation, but that’s the reality.”
A Green Party source confirmed that a telephone number had been provided for a small number of people who were worried, while Jewish attendees could enter through a separate entrance to avoid protests outside the venue.
The door to the room carried a sign stating “No Access To Press”. Police were stationed around the conference centre, while rival pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations were kept apart outside.
One senior Jewish source in the party said: “I’ve been a member of the Green Party for years, but never, ever have Jewish Greens been forced to endure a situation like this. Security plans have been kept very secret, for obvious reasons.”
A security guard said staff had been told to “prepare for the worst” and conduct thorough searches of conference attendees. Organisers also brought forward the deadline for registration to September 25 to allow time for security checks.
Greens divided over Zionism motion
Members are due to vote on a motion describing Zionism — the movement associated with the creation of Israel as a Jewish state — as a form of racism.
Former Green leaders Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsay have criticised the proposal, calling it “divisive” and “not helpful”. Green Party leader Zack Polanski has also expressed concern about its scope, while deputy leader Rachel Millward said it would be “problematic” unless amended to include protection for Jewish members.
Joint deputy leader Mothin Ali said he “absolutely” supported the motion. “It talks about ethnic-cleansing, it talks about ethno-nationalism,” he told the BBC. “Anyone that believes in that, then I think it is a racist ideology.”
If approved, the motion would make the Greens the only mainstream party in Europe to declare itself openly anti-Zionist, according to the source material.
Mr Polanski, who has been focusing on efforts to become an MP at the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on October 8, has insisted that the party is “absolutely united” over its position on Israel and Gaza.
He said the party’s shared view was that “we need to end the genocide, we need to stop selling arms to Israel”, citing deaths in Gaza and the number of child amputees there.
Several conference debates and fringe events have focused on Israel and Palestine. A main-hall session titled “Palestine: The Golden Thread that Unravelled Britain” was chaired by Zak Khan, who was detained by the Israeli navy after joining the Gaza flotilla, and featured anti-Zionist speaker Andrew Feinstein.
